


First Circle

by sentientcitizen



Category: Firefly, Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-15
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-24 21:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentientcitizen/pseuds/sentientcitizen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Operative isn’t ready for what he finds in the Tam girl’s mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Circle

**Author's Note:**

> So [](http://kaydeefalls.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**kaydeefalls**](http://kaydeefalls.dreamwidth.org/) has been writing awesome [Inception fusion fic](http://kaydeefalls.dreamwidth.org/642213.html) (seriously, go read it; Inception/XM:FC) and it gave me itchy fingers. Dreams are just so much fun to write in! Also, I’d been looking for an excuse to use the phrase “ravings of a drug-addled synesthete”. I own neither fandom, and I’m making no money. The title, as well as some of River’s dialogue, refers to Dante’s “Inferno”. Thanks as always to [](http://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**sophia_sol**](http://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/) for betaing.

The Operative takes a deep breath and then the Somnacin kicks in, and he finds himself in a desert. The sky above him is crystal clear, the stars as bright and crisp as if seen from the black itself. The landscape stretches on as far as the eye can see, flat and empty - except for the whirlwind that rises up directly before him, opaque with desert dust.

He frowns at it. This was never going to be a straight-forward extraction, of course. The Alliance had invested years of effort and staggering amounts of money, into teaching the Tam girl to protect her secrets. But he was expecting a fairy-tale fortress, or a military complex like the one her brother had extracted her from. A whirlwind is a strange choice, as visualisations go. Still, it’s the only thing to be seen in the desert landscape, so with a shrug he steps forward into the buffeting winds.

He’s immediately hit with a vivid - memory? A small wooden puzzle box forms in the whirling dust. The panels shift and the lid creeps open, and a spider the size of a horse forces itself out, reaching towards him. He stumbles backwards, instinctively, and another gust of wind catches him, the spider dissolving in its wake.

A big shaggy dog rears up on its hind legs beside him. It’s dressed like a ballerina, right down to the pink pointe shoes. “You shouldn’t be here, Simon, ” it chides, in a clipped core-world accent. He stares at it, confused. The dog vanishes into the whirling air.

He has a sword in his hand, although he doesn’t remember drawing his, and plate armour strapped to his body, and snow crunches beneath his feet as a bellowing polar bear charges towards him. Cursing, he throws himself to the side and the bear vanishes too, leaving him in an empty city, the ever-present wind roaring between skyscrapers that gleam purple and gold.

Sudden comprehension hits him, and he starts laughing. Dreams - the wind carries dreams, real dreams. It’s been so long since he’s dreamed without the PASIV, he’s almost forgotten what it was like. She’s defending her dreaming mind with - dreams. He finds himself smiling wistfully. Oh, he’ll be sorry to kill this one.

Turning, he sets his face to where the wind blows strongest, and starts walking.

The world shifts around him, a madcap patchwork of surrealist landscapes and impossible figures. Facets of the Tam girl’s mindscape seem to exist in intrinsically contradictory states. Ideas he’s never had and things he’s never known settle complacently into his mind, then depart with smug ease, leaving discomfiting gaps in his memory. It’s unnerving, even for him. True dreams aren’t meant to be experienced by the conscious mind.

The further he goes, the worse it gets. Cold pinpricks ripple down up his arms, each one a different colour. A burbling laugh crawls up his back with sharp-tipped fingers, and a kiss that sounds like the taste of lemonade brushes mockingly across his cheeks. It’s like walking through the ravings of a drug-addled synesthete, and his fingers itch to put a bullet through his head and kick back out to the real world. How can Tam stay sane, with something like this in her mind?

And then suddenly he’s through. The eye of the storm is flat rock, dull slate in colour and swept clean by the same breezes that tug at him even now, trying to draw him back into madness. There, on the far side of the circle, he sees the Tam girl. She stands like a dancer; like an assassin; like a creature made of dreaming alone, without waking flesh to weigh her down. She steps forward - wafts, more truthfully, like a fine silk scarf - and smiles at him.

He smiles back, sadly, and steps towards her -

\- and the ground crumbles beneath his feet. Cursing, he flings himself back. The slate rock of the whirlwind’s eye has dropped away, leaving him standing on a slender column that protrudes up from an impossible depth. Across from him, Tam perches on her own column, giggling like a schoolgirl.

“Fooled him,” she manages, through peals of laughter. “Scared him. The look on his face!”

The Operative feels a genuine smile of his own slowly spreading across his face. Now that the ground beneath his feet seems inclined to stay where he’d put it, he can appreciate the artistry of it all. Not a one of his projections will be able to break through the whirlwind to join them, which leaves her free to manipulate the dreamscape as she sees fit.

“Clever girl,” he says, and means it. Then he dreams himself a bridge between their columns.

Tam stops laughing. “Careful,” she warns, eyes wide. “You can’t build faster than I can break - don’t fall down, or you won’t get up. You won’t like the solemn castle. No one laughs there.”

He hesitates, and looks down. “What’s down there, little girl?”

She smiles, faintly. “Not a girl. Hide under the covers where the nightmares can’t find you, and River goes away. They made me a dream-thing. Not even real any more.” Almost as an afterthought, she adds, “They call it Limbo.”

He inhales sharply, stepping back from the edge, and his dream-bridge collapses. The blackness of the pit seems suddenly all the more menacing. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

Tam shrugs. “It’s my dream.”

“It’s _my_ dream,” he corrects her, gently.

She laughs again, seeming happier now that he isn’t trying to leave his pillar. “My dream now,” she says, then narrows her eyes. “You wanted my secrets,” she informs him, as lucid as he’s heard her yet. “Rip them out of me, make me tell you who I’ve told - then smash me all to pieces so I never tell again.”

He nods, not bothering to deny it.

“Then you’ll find the people I told, and break them too,” she says, softly. “Hurt my family.”

He nods again. No point in denying that either.

She looks sad, but resigned. She understands, he thinks. She’s like him. She understands the things that must be done, to make a better world.

Then she smiles. “The castle isn’t as lonely if you have a friend,” she says. “I know. I’ve been there.”

His eyes widen. “River, no - ”

And the pillars crumble beneath them.


End file.
